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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28292415">Loved and Lost: Postbellum</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Actaeus/pseuds/Actaeus'>Actaeus</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Loved and Lost [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Mass Effect Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Feels, Angst and Porn, Other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:15:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28292415</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Actaeus/pseuds/Actaeus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Mila Shepard and the Geth Mobile Platform “Legion” talk about death and other heavy thoughts. This is a 2020 Mass Effect Fanfiction Writer’s Group Secret Santa Request; where I was asked for a Legion/Femshep fic (anything goes). After some thought; I came up with something that not only worked, but could be combined with my other Secret Santa Request.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Legion/Female Shepard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Loved and Lost [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2072106</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>MEFFW Secret Santa Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Loved and Lost: Postbellum</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrimsonShield75/gifts">CrimsonShield75</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a slight AU; in that Legion is picked up by the crew earlier in ME2, rather than just before the Suicide mission.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <strong>Computer Core, <em>Normandy</em> SR-2<br/></strong>
  <strong>Mid May 2185</strong>
</p><p>Mila Shepard entered the slightly chilly room that EDI and now Legion resided in. The Geth platform had joined their crew several days ago. Already she’d had to talk down Tali from destroying the platform, an experience she wasn’t looking forward to again, if Tali didn’t cool down somewhat.</p><p>“Shepard-Commander,” announced the Geth. “Why does Moreau-Pilot persist in calling us Skynet? Our designated name is Legion.”</p><p>“Old joke dealing with the earliest depictions of a machine rebellion in human fiction,” replied Mila.</p><p>“If past experience is any guide,” added EDI from a nearby speaker. “Mr. Moreau will persist in calling you Skynet for approximately 325.3 hours, upon which he will choose a different name.”</p><p>“EDI-Curator, that is very inefficient. It makes no sense to constantly re-designate a unit. It wastes many program cycles to keep track of the current designator.”</p><p>Mila couldn’t help but crack a thin smile at that. Leave it to Joker to irritate a collective consensus of programs. “It’s part of becoming the crew, Legion,” she said. “Joker’s a tough person to please. The fact that he’s got a pet name for you is part of his acceptance.”</p><p>The Geth paused for a brief second as they pondered things. “Shepard-Commander, you are suggesting that we redesignate Moreau-Pilot as Moreau-Penguin.”</p><p>At that, Mila laughed. “I’m not sure that Joker would like you calling him a flightless bird.”</p><p>“Other alternatives are Emu, Ostrich and Turkey,” replied EDI.</p><p>“Noted. We will update Moreau-Penguin of its new designation at the earliest possibility.”</p><p>
  <strong>Port Observation Deck, <em>Normandy</em> SR-2<br/></strong>
  <strong>Mid May 2185</strong>
</p><p>With a hiss, the hatch to Port Observation opened and Legion stepped through, noting that Shepard-Commander was there. One set of programs noted that the Spectre had been in there for thirty minutes, while another set noticed the open miniature bar to the side of the observation room and calculated the volume of alcohol consumed.</p><p>“Come on in, Legion. I’d offer you a drink, but you can’t get smashed.” At that, Mila paused. “Then again, so can’t I.”</p><p>“Fucking Cerberus.” she spat. “Lawson thought that giving me the latest bio-kidneys would be <em>great</em>.”</p><p>“Your resistance to poisons has been greatly improved,” it pointed out. “Mission success probability is now significantly higher.”</p><p>At that, Mila rolled her eyes and took another drink. “Fuck the mission,” she said.</p><p>Legion calculated probabilities in each of its collective program groups. “You visited T’Soni-Researcher on Illium several hours ago. We calculate from your behavior that the visit was...”</p><p>At this, it paused, as one subset of programs had previously noted that organics used delays in communications as messages themselves.</p><p>“...unproductive,” it finished after a calculated delay.</p><p>Dark laughter filled the space. “Unproductive is an understatement.” Shepard paused for a moment, concentrating on Legion’s chest. “You’ve got a fucking hole in your chest.”</p><p>Mila took another swig and noticed for the first time, the faint markings on a hastily modified piece of armor covering up most of Legion’s chest wound.</p><p>“And a piece of goddamn N7 armor.” Her eyes narrowed. “How’d you come about all that?”</p><p>Legion tilted it’s primary optical sensor slightly. “Following your destruction of the Old Machines at the Citadel, this platform and its programs were assigned the task of locating you as the Geth wished to speak with you.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>“Your handling of the situation on Luna was...intriguing to the Geth.”</p><p>“Unfortunately,” continued Legion. “You disappeared before we could arrive in your proximity, so we began our search at your last known location.”</p><p>“Alchera.”</p><p>“Yes. We came under fire from scavengers associated with the Blue Suns conglomerate. Regrettably, we were forced to eliminate them, but not before receiving significant damage to this platform.”</p><p>Legion paused. All of it’s subgroupings indicated that the next statement would cause significant upset to Shepard-Commander. “We had to improvise repairs to continue our mission.”</p><p>Mila wasted no time in throwing her glass. It bounced off the armor surrounding the optical sight and shattered on the floor. “You <em>goddamned</em> grave robber!”</p><p>“Just like <em>her</em>,” she screamed. “That goddamned blue bitch.”</p><p>“Shepard-Commander, this platform has no data available on actions it performed on Alchera for approximately three maker-cycles. Much of our recollection of events on Alchera are from reasonable approximations based on data available to us.”</p><p>“How fucking convenient,” she said as she stormed out of Port Observation.</p><p>In the darkness, lit only by starlight and the dim ‘always on’ emergency lighting, Legion continued to run through several focusing cycles for its primary visual observation system while it calculated probabilities for its next encounter with Shepard-Commander.</p><p>
  <strong>Access Tunnel 5-Delta, <em>Normandy</em> SR-2<br/></strong>
  <strong>Later that Night (Local Ship Time)</strong>
</p><p>Legion slowly entered the space, it’s ultrasonic sensors turned up to the maximum, along with optical image enhancement. Shepard-Commander was nowhere to be found, and analysis of the <em>Normandy’s</em> floor pattern showed that this particular corridor was the furthest nexus from any habitable space on the <em>Normandy</em>.</p><p>“Didn’t think robots needed to get laid.”</p><p>“Shepard-Commander, we could not find you, it was a simple Markov chain search to find this as your most probable location.”</p><p>“Way to take the intrigue out of it all.” Mila sighed. “Next time, just corner Donnelly or Adams and threaten to blow the whistle on them.”</p><p>“That is inefficient, Shepard-Commander.”</p><p>“Geth don’t have social engineering classes where they come from?”</p><p>Legion paused at that. “There are study groups on the Makers and other organics.”</p><p>“So why are you here? To study me some more, like some kind of <em>science experiment?</em>”</p><p>“Shepard-Commander, our last conversation ended badly.”</p><p>“Virtually every species has rules against grave robbing. Do the Geth, or do you just <em>recycle</em> programs?”</p><p>“When we arrived at Alchera, we had 1,451 programs in our consensus,” Legion said with some sadness. “When we regained consensus amongst the wreckage of your ship, we only had 1,183.”</p><p>Silence filled the corridor, broken only by Shepard’s breathing. “We tried to recover the programs,” Legion continued. “Partial fragments were recovered before recovery was aborted. Mission priorities took precedence over individual programs.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Mila said after a prolonged silence. “It...was the same with me.”</p><p>“Alenko-Soldier.”</p><p>At hearing his name, Mila sighed, the memories she’d fought to repress coming back; of choking down on hard vacuum for air that would never come and her last thoughts as the darkness closed in.</p><p>“When I...died, the last thing I thought was ‘It’ll be good to see Kaidan again’.”</p><p>She let out a heavy breath. “Instead, I wake up in a fucking <em>Cerberus</em> lab, of all places; stuffed full of <em>machines</em>. Every time I lift my arms, I can feel the <em>wires</em> inside.”</p><p>She fought the urge to cry. “Most everyone looks at me like I’ve only been away for two years on some classified deep cover mission. Only a few know the truth...that I’m a piece of <em>meat</em> that Cerberus beat into living again.”</p><p>Legion cocked its receptor slightly. Pieces were falling into place on it’s probability matrix. “T’Soni-Researcher knows,” it stated.</p><p>Running her hands through her brown hair, Mila sighed. “Liara stole what was left of me from the Blue Suns a day after they blew that hole in your chest.”</p><p>The waterfall of probabilities flowed, leaving only a few conclusions left. “T’Soni-Researcher gave you to Cerberus,” Legion stated, fluttering its ocular wipers in what simulations said was a reasonable anthromorphization of distress for organics.</p><p>“Yeah. One of the few people I trusted,” Mila added with scorn on her lips. “Dropping me off like a slab of meat to Cerberus, just like that.”</p><p>“Geth do not travel beyond the Perseus Veil, yet this platform is here. Strange times require strange responses.”</p><p>“I asked her if she was my friend.” Mila then raised her voice to a singsong approximation of Liara’s Armali accent. “‘Of course you are my friend, Shepard...but, sometimes the Goddess demands more than just one life.’ ”</p><p>Mila paused, gathering her bile. “Cerberus showed her a translation of an obelisk they’d bought off some researchers. A dig in Epsilon Indi five years before the First Contact War uncovered it; but it was untranslated until Cerberus threw EDI at it.”</p><p>“Secondary corroboration of the cycles,” Legion pointed out. “Validation of the Prothean VI you discovered?”</p><p>“I have no idea if it’s real or not. Could be something they made up just to get her to give me up. It’s supposedly an epitah written two hundred thousand years ago about another Reaper invasion.” Another sigh. “For all I know, Cerberus got my mission report and suit footage regarding Vigil and threw together plausible bullshit to tempt Liara. I said as much to her.”</p><p>Dropping once more into a facsimile Armali imitation, she continued. “ ‘Shepard, it does not matter if it is true or not. We can <em>not</em> take the chance. Everything we all are, thousands upon thousands of generations of lives lived and died, only to be extinguished and then forgotten for eternity, like those who preceded the Protheans? I <em>will</em> not allow it to happen. I am sorry.’ ”</p><p>“T’Soni-Researcher’s logic is correct,” Legion began before Shepard cut it off.</p><p>“Of course I know it’s fucking right!” she snapped. “It’s the first thing they screen candidates for in N-School. Sometimes the <em>mission</em> is greater than the man. That doesn’t mean I have to <em>like</em> it!”</p><p>A pause.</p><p>“I’m just a cybernetic golem everyone thinks is the woman who died two years ago.”</p><p>Shepard paused, her glare boring holes into Legion’s main ocular sensor. “I don’t want to talk about it anymore, Legion.”</p><p>
  <strong>Captain’s Quarters, <em>Normandy</em> SR-2<br/></strong>
  <strong>July 2185</strong>
</p><p>EDI sent a warning tone through the speakers in the Captain’s Quarters before activating her main voice module. “Commander, we are inbound to the Omega Four relay. Our estimated arrival time is six hours.”</p><p>Mila looked up from the dead fish that were floating in her aquarium. Cerberus had spent millions of credits in building a bigger, newer, improved <em>Normandy</em>, but couldn’t be bothered to buy a simple automatic feeder for the Captain’s tank. <em>Typical</em>.</p><p>“Per our discussions, the ship will go into total EMCON lockdown before we enter the Sahrabarik system to avoid any possible cyberwarfare intrusions by Collector programs inhabiting the Omega-4 relay. You have five and a half hours before the lockdown. Do you wish to send any messages?”</p><p>“No, I don’t wish to send any messages.” A thought then struck her. “Belay that. Inform Legion that he’s wanted in my quarters.”</p><p>Several minutes later, the lift doors beeped.</p><p>“Shepard-Commander, you wished to see us?”</p><p>“Yeah. Since we’re all likely going to die,” she said, adding <em>for the last time</em> in her internal thoughts. “A last minute fuck can clear the mind.”</p><p>“Shepard-Commander, this is...”</p><p>“Crazy?”</p><p>“...Unexpected, but not so,” finished Legion.</p><p>Mila narrowed her eyes. “Geth have done this before,” she surmised. “Otherwise you would’ve run out the door or shut down claiming ‘invalid data’.”</p><p>Legion dimmed it’s main ocule and wagged it’s ‘mouth’ mandibles, while one subset of programs frantically recalled long-disused subroutines from deep within the gestalt.</p><p>“Many of our domestic platforms before the Morning War had...certain software programs installed for domestic purposes,” it explained.</p><p>“Those horny bastards,” muttered Mila. “That brings a new meaning to the term fucking the domestic help.”</p><p>Legion did what she’d come to recognize as the Geth equivalent of a sigh. “Shepard-Commander, many of the programs are calibrated only for Maker-Quarian physiology. Your legs bend to the wrong angles compared to the Makers. Severe biomechanical harm is possible.”</p><p>If Mila didn’t know any better, she’d swear the Geth was blushing. N-School had taught her to improvise on her feet, so that’s what she did after a moment’s thought.</p><p>“Come over here and fuck me on the bed. That way you can’t twist my legs like pretzels and jeopardize the mission.”</p><p>“This platform is not fully equipped for biological...interaction,” stated Legion, wagging it’s mandibles. At this, Mila had to giggle.</p><p>“First drawer of the dresser by the bed.”</p><p>Minutes later, as Legion pounded into her while she lay spread across the bed, she had to admit, it was not that bad. Tali was certainly missing out on an opportunity.</p><p>Reaching out with a free arm, she triggered the skylight over the bed and stared into the darkness of space even as Legion switched the strap-on dildo inside her to a different program, causing her to shiver slightly as the pulsations changed.</p><p><em>What am I?</em> she thought. <em>Am I nothing but a sack of dead flesh just going through the motions, however pleasurable they might be, until the end?</em></p><p>
  <em>I guess we’ll find out on the other side.</em>
</p>
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